Eric Berlin will be live blogging and drinking coffee throughout Election Day. Keep it tuned right here for the latest!
Entries are listed newest-to-oldest.
11:59 p.m. PST – Pasadena, California
It's 3:00 a.m. on the east coast, and the pundits are getting punchy. Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann are discussing the voices in their respective heads and exchanging plaudits and donuts. Meanwhile, there's a dude on CNN ranting and raving.
I'm getting punchy myself so I'll sign off for the night. It's been great fun live blogging this election from my peculiar and hopefully entertaining perspective, and a great night overall!
11:30 p.m. PST – Pasadena, California
The size of the new Democratic majority in the House is looking to be in the outer ranges of most predictions, in other words a really and truly monster night!
Things started to "sink in" for me overall a little bit with McCaskill's victory in Missouri. I mentioned to a fellow Blogcritic on the phone this evening that I haven't felt quite this way since 1992, when I was a freshman in college. It just didn't seem possible, as a kid who grew up during the Reagan-Bush '41 years, for a Democrat to take over the White House.
Now we're on the cusp of seeing Democrats take over both houses of Congress. It's still looking like it's going to be a long march to get Webb over the top in Virginia. However, it's very very meaningful that he has the "high ground" of having the vote lead, about 11,000 votes at last check.
To wrap up: great great night for Dems, and getting very close to simply unbelievable.
10:44 p.m. PST – Pasadena, California
It looks like control of the US Senate might (if Missouri and Montana continue to lean the Demoratic way) come down to Virginia.
It's really tight, and the lawsuits and long waits may well lie ahead.
9:02 p.m. PST – Pasadena, California
Man, the Allen-Webb race is tight! MSNBC has Allen up by a few thousand, and CNN has it the other way. James Carville seems convinced that it's going to come down to Montana — if he's right, I think we just might squeeze out a Democratic Senate as well.
There's also a lot of talk about a Democratic sweep... in the Northeast, at the least. The picture in the rest of the country is still getting defined. But in any event, angry independents have spoken this year, and there will be major repercussions from it on many fronts.
Here's a quick sketch list:
* Moderate Republicans are now a rare breed
* Karl Rove's brand of rev up the base and scare bloody hell out of everyone else has finally failed
* Democrats are finally seeing their way to finding a ruling majority
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Lisa McKay
I voted before I came to work this morning. Officials in Connecticut are predicting a pretty high turnout, so I was surprised to see -- not much of anyone. I didn't even have to wait in line (unlike the presidential election in '04, when I waited in line at my tiny suburban polling place for nearly a half hour).
2 - Jet in Columbus
Eric,
1. How long before the sore losers begin filing lawsuits due to machine count irregularities to hit the courts?
2. Will the results be cettified by Christmas. Don't forget here in Ohio Blackwell is in charge of elections, and he's running for governor and is expected to lose?
Jet
3 - Dave Nalle
Don't forget here in Ohio Blackwell is in charge of elections, and he's running for governor and is expected to lose?
A sacrificial victim to prove the integrity of the GOP, perhaps. It's the kind of gesture Republicans would go for.
Dave
4 - Eric Berlin
There may be some legal machinations but I suspect that it won't be nearly enough to affect the overall narrative of the day.
5 - Arch Conservative
One thing is for certain. At the end of the day the Dems will have won the "dead" vote and the illegal alien vote.
6 - Eric Berlin
That doesn't sound very sporting of you, Arch. Surely at the very least you'll admit that there are less-than-fair tactics employed by both sides. This robo calling thing, for instance, is straight-up not cool.
And I think the practice of counting the dead has been stamped out for some number of years now.
7 - Phillip Winn
I'm rooting for an independent candidate for governor in Texas, but someone decided to spend $10 million in the last few weeks pushing the fourth-place Democratic candidate into second place, and I fear voter turnout will be low.
Still, I'm voting for Kinky. And from here on out, nearly every outsider I can find.
8 - Phillip Winn
EB, there are still reports from the last election of homeless roundups and dead voters in Illinois, but there will probably always be those.
I agree with you completely, though, on the bipartisan nature of election fraud: both major parties are filled with scummy liars using dirty tricks to get their boys and girls elected.
9 - Eric Berlin
I hope the next Congress undertakes major election and voting reform -- but as I say above I'm an optimist!
10 - Dave Nalle
If that's the case I assume you didn't vote for any Democrats, Eric. They're on record nationwide as opposing any kind of electoral reform.
Dave
11 - Eric Berlin
As is often the case I disagree Dave! Democrats clearly want to reform the electoral process. They just might not want to do it in the way that you're in favor of.
12 - Scott W
I voted my anger today, and am praying for a bloodbath for the Republicans. I blogged about the elections and Borat (yes, all in the same entry) at Moderate Liberal. Stop by and vent.
13 - Nancy
In a way, I have to confirm Arch's comment about the dead voting, as the latest occurrance seems to have been with a liberal voting-reg group name of Acorn out in the neighborhood of Missouri or so. Whole raft of 'em just got convicted. Howsumever, it does not have the DNC blessing, altho whether that's just 'cause they got caught is problematic, as they say.
I voted en route to work (& I have to be here by 7), so I was first in line & first out as usual. I was gratified to find that unlike Lisa, my polling place had people in line out the doors before I'd gotten thru casting my ballot at 7.08 am. Gotta say tho it does make me a tad nervous when the two little old ladies per table seem unable to figure out how to get their little tabletop computer to empower the card to start up the Diebold (just touch the screen, Ladies! Poke in my last name & it'll come up on its own. Then swipe the card through the slot & hand it to the customer. Next - ! Geez!). All the elections officials were elderlies clearly ill at ease with computers, and only 1 or 2 younger (presumably) tech-savvy persons wandering around peering over shoulders. Since the schools are out for the day, why not recruit some high schoolers to help granny & grandpa with the computers, for gosh sakes, if they can't be hired outright themselves to run it?
Once I got to the Diebold, poking buttons took little time, & it was a matter of seconds before I saw my vote disappear into the register (or the void, depending; guess I'll find out tonight).
Meanwhile the GOP is up to its usual dirty tricks, sending out fliers targeted to the black communities of Pr. George's, claiming that 3 very Dem, prominent Black Public Persons have endorsed the GOP Governor, Erlich, & the GOP Senatorial candidate, Steele, when in fact they have not & are pretty livid about misuse/misappropriation of their names for false advertising purposes. Likewise there's been a spate of phone calls purporting to be from Dems but actually GOP-engendered, which has likewise raised a furor, with the GOP of course denying they've done anything wrong, even tho it's the same old trick as the one they pulled up in New England last time & were told by the courts to knock it off or else. Two more reasons why I'd vote for the Nazi party before I'd vote for the GOP, the way it currently is, full of maggots & lowlifes like Karl Rove and KR wannabes.
The MSM is reporting from somewhere that the latest polls show a sudden surge in GOP support - from where? Very perplexing, considering at last report the polls here (MD/DC) were showing the DNC candidates 15 pts or more in the lead. VA, of course, is neck & neck between Allen & Webb. Northern Va, where all the recent immigrants & liberals live, is huge & heavily populated, but I don't know that anyone can say if they outnumber the redneck racist yahoos downstate in Richmond & points south. We'll see. What a choice: the racist or the sexist.
DC's problem is they're SO Dem they're worried that having carried the primary, DC Mayoral candidate Fenty won't have anybody to vote for him 'cause they won't show up, figuring wrongly that he's already won the first time around. Typical DC snafu: nobody knows what's going on. At least he seems like a good candidate, Fenty. A far cry from that clown, Marion Barry, who almost took down the city single-handedly. Or should that be single-nostrilly?
14 - Phillip Winn
EB, the biggest movements we've seen toward anything remotely resembling electoral reform have all been in the wrong direction. Now wealthy people can run commercials saying whatever they want, while the rest of us can't. Thanks, McCain-Feingold!
People in power don't want to lessen their power. Congress is set up so that even with an anti-incumbent sweep, the newbies are in the minority, unable to get anything passed on their own.
We haven't had a politican who thought of his country before himself since George Washington, I think.
15 - Jet in Columbus
Arch who are you kidding??? Every republincan on the face of the planet is PRAYING the democrats win so they'll have someone to blame the already lost Iraq war on in the 2008 elections.
gimme a break.
I may vote republickan just to jinx them
Jet
16 - Nancy
Like his Fearless Leader, Arch lives in a state of denial, Jet, that the GOP ever does or has done anything less than sterling or honorable; it's all CLINTON'S fault, heh heh heh harrr....
17 - Jet in Columbus
The only election reform that'll work is to outlaw gerrymandering permanently
18 - Eric Berlin
Thanks for all the great comments, all!
Phillip -- "positive" electoral reform is not going to be easy. I really believe that McCain/Feingold had the best of intentions. But it will take significant political will to push through something really substantive and meaningful *and* constitutional. I'm not confident that we'll see this anytime soon, but I remain ever hopeful.
19 - Nancy
I think, Jet, you're right. Gerrymandering should be as dead as the dodo by now, but ain't. Ditto the electoral college. That should be another item to be among the first out the window. McCain/Feingold had their hearts in the right places, but didn't plug up the significant loopholes, hence the proliferation of 527s which enable all the negative ads that allow the candidates to deny having anything to do with smearing the opposition.
20 - Nancy
I read another idea very recently, on this blogsite, that candidates shouldn't be allowed to receive donations from anybody not actually in their districts who isn't an actual constitutent. This would thereby avoid outside influence-peddling. It would never go thru, tho: greedy pols wouldn't even consider it, let alone pass it, unless at the point of a gun.
21 - Phillip Winn
EB, I agree with you about McCain-Feingold, but they say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In this case, it's the road to a huge infringement on free speech for all but the wealthy. And I'll be the first to admit that I don't know how to solve the problem; I just know that McCain-Feingold ain't it.
By the way, my own voting record today will be quite mixed, hitting three official parties and an independent candidate, and I know better than to suggest that the historical trend of the last 50+ years will be broken, even though it was already in the last election. Also, I'm sure that my perspective is colored a bit by where I live (Dallas, TX), but I'm not so sure that giddiness is calle for.
That is, the Republicans I know, including an Republican elector, seem less pessimistic than I might expect. They've known this day was coming for years, and worked hard on the local level to get out the vote and so on. Well, "get out the vote" among people who will vote for them, and apparently using dirty tricks to suppress it where people won't.
Here's the thing: historically, the Democratic party has won votes on the ground, door by door, busload by busload, while the Republicans done as well at engaging voters at such a specific one-at-a-time election day level. That seems to have changed this year. Instead of relying on their ideas to win, they've engaged the Democratic party on the ground, which I think is what has led to so much nastiness on both sides this time around.
My point is this: Old patterns have been very deliberately messed with around the country. I expect the Democrats to make progress, but I wouldn't be so sure of control of both houses. As unreliable as polls can be, I don't think they're definitively pointing in the direction you're hoping.
Of course, the Dems could win every race by a handful of votes, and then both of us would be right. :-)
22 - Eric Berlin
By the way, question for Lisa in Connecticut: did you sense any on-the-ground vibes portending either a Lieberman or Lamont victory?
23 - Phillip Winn
Gerrymandering is just redistricting you don't like, and redistricting is necessary, because for states larger than Rhode Island, you want *local* representation. My concerns in suburban Dallas are not the same as the concerns of those in downtown Dallas, let alone east Texas farmers or west Texas oil workers or south Texas people who face more issues along the border than we do up here.
So we need districts, and we need occasional redistricting. How do we ensure that redistricting is done reasonably, so that it doesn't turn into gerrymandering (which, again, is just redistricting you don't like)?
Should it be pure math? Remember, while I recognize the profound difference in thinking between urban, suburban, and exurban Dallasites, how is a computer to tell the difference? I know that there's a big mental shift once you cross north of I-635, and again once you cross north of SH-121. Can a computer?
Possibly, or possibly it doesn't matter as much as I think it does. Perhaps we set up software to count people and draw rectangles and use those districts, with multi-partisan oversight for obvious problems.
Anything other than that will inevitably be described as gerrymandering by whomever loses.
Of course, what happened in Texas was pure rottenness, and a lot of why not many Republicans are getting my vote this year. But I guarantee you that the Democrats would have and will do the same thing with the same power.
24 - Scott
I think the Lieberman/Lamont race is going to be much closer than polls are showing. I'm not saying Lamont wins, but I don't think he loses by 12 points either.
Also, watch the Florida GOV race...anecdotal evidence is pointing to a possible Davis upset win.
25 - Janice
Eric,
Do you think there's a chance that Malachy McCourt will win in NY?!?!